black gown/white gown

Graduation day was wedding day. At least for the bride it was. You know, the whole black gown in morning-white gown at night deal.

She graduated from college at 10 that morning. We got married at 7 that night. That's crazy. Although, it wasn't really that day that was crazy--but the months of wedding prep and senior-level coursework at the same time leading up to it that was really crazy. Anyway, she's an overachiever and she did great at both. I, on the other hand, dropped a letter grade in my Design of Experiments class.

Between commencement and nuptials there were about 4 hours of free time. Bride and groom spent about half of that time at Hardee's. Brilliant! That's the last place anyone would have ever looked for us. We still don't go to Hardee's. Our families and friends weren't looking for us anyway. They had a wedding to get ready for. Anyway, I think everyone else thought we were both very busy.

We only needed some time with each other. I'll never forget (and always treasure) those stolen moments with my fiancee at a fast food restaurant talking openly and honestly about our future together as a family. In retrospect I realize we'd worked harder preparing for the marriage than for the wedding--advice I'd give to anyone.

Even today in the busy-ness of family life with careers and church obligations and so on, we look for little bits of stolen time together. I love those times and I love her because of them.